Avatar

Five Truths about the Internet of Everything

I’ve been spending a lot of time talking and thinking about a world in which everything is connected.  The Internet of Everything isn’t some futuristic Idea that we are dreaming about, it’s charging forward at incredible speed and everything is being connected.  I’d like to look at five characteristics or truths about IOE that are becoming evident:

Continue reading “Five Truths about the Internet of Everything”



Avatar

“Given the rapid speed of change in today’s global marketplace, a country must invest in its greatest asset—its people—and train them to excel in science, technology, engineering, and math [STEM].” Cisco Chairman and CEO John Chambers

A skilled workforce is the backbone of a successful and competitive economy. Unfortunately, here in the United States, we are falling behind on educating people in the STEM fields that are vital to the technology careers that our society depends on.

At Cisco, we are working to change that through our educational investments, particularly our Networking Academy program.

Continue reading “Cisco CEO John Chambers Recognized Among 100 CEO Leaders in STEM”



Authors

Alexis Raymond

Manager

Cisco Corporate Affairs

Avatar

Hi All!  This is the second of what I’m hoping will be a weekly recap for Enterprise Networks.I say “hoping” because we’re just testing it out for now to see if people like it and if it adds value.

In this video I give a short summary of what happened this last week, then I have a fun interview with one of our premier ASIC designers here at Cisco, Guntram Wolski.  When we were coming up with the concept for this weekly recap I wanted to find some of the smart, fun, technical people who have been involved with the creation of some of our coolest technologies.  I really lucked out with Guntram – as you’ll see, we had quite a fun* interview. Finally, we have an announcement on what we’ll be covering next week.  After the jump, I’ve got all the links to things mentioned during the recap.  Let me know what you think of this video and if there are other people you’d like me to interview.

Continue reading “Enterprise Networks Week in Review Two”



Authors

Lauren Friedman

Marketing Manager

Enterprise Networks

Avatar

Hi all,

As we continue to expand on the conversation of the Cisco Open Network Environment (Cisco ONE), this week provides yet another educational opportunity (Register here) to discuss a topic that has become some what top of mind to customers, partners and even investors alike. This is the topic of open source in networked environments.  While Cisco has always been known for open standards,  it has now stepped up into the open source conversation in a fairly big way over the couple of years with its contributions to both OpenStack and the more recent OpenDaylight project under the Linux foundation.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UgCN1CuiecE

Continue reading “Cisco, IBM and the Linux Foundation discuss Open Source in Networked Environments”



Authors

Shashi Kiran

Senior Director, Market Management

Data Center, Cloud and Open Networking

Avatar

The city of Nice and Cisco, working with Think Global, showcased today the first Internet of Everything proof-of-concept (PoC) for a smart city. The project, called “Connected Boulevard,” builds on Connected Mobile Experiences to create innovative connected experiences by playing host to “guest” devices such as mobile phones and tablets used in the streets that get connected onto its Cisco wireless mesh network.

The project leverages Cisco’s mobility offerings of Outdoor Access Points, Wireless Controller and Mobility Services Engine to connect 200 sensors throughout the city to gather data. The true enabler of these new innovative connected experiences is the Cisco Connected Mobile Experiences (CMX) solution. Layered on top of the wireless infrastructure, CMX with its location analytics and browser-based mobile engagement opens the door for the city to deliver highly relevant information, insights and services to its residents and its visitors.

International city dignitaries and a local press delegation were treated to a walkabout tour at Boulevard Victor Hugo in the center of Nice by the Mayor and the City CEO, where they could experience the power of Connected Mobile Experiences..Nice deployed two components of Connected Mobile Experiences: CMX Analytics and CMX Browser Engage.

CMX Analytics enables city organizers to visualize the busy parts of the city and witness how device density varies across the day and the week.

CMX Nice 3 Continue reading “Nice, France: A Municipal Showcase for Cisco’s Connected Mobile Experiences”



Authors

Brendan O'Brien

Director Global Product Marketing

Connected Mobile Experiences

Avatar

Back in the old days, when security was much more of an afterthought, it was obvious that miscreants were familiar with the principle of least effort. Information security was still in its Wild West days. Managed disclosure and patching did not really exist. Most companies were just coming to realize they would need to put some effort into securing their assets. I was tasked with most of the security deployments and forensic investigation at a startup hosting company. We had a lot of bandwidth (at the time) and a lot of poorly managed servers. You could watch our gateway and know when a new vulnerability was discovered in the underground. You could see miscreants scanning for a specific service in a specific network. Miscreants had done their homework, and knew where the vulnerable hosts resided. This targeting was efficient. Sure enough, hosts would start being compromised and a few days later some sort of official disclosure would happen detailing the vulnerability the miscreants had been scanning for. Continue reading “Miscreants and the Principle of Least Effort”



Authors

Avatar

leanin

Long after she made it cool to be a woman in high tech, Sheryl Sandberg is now making it popular to talk about gender in the workplace. The Facebook COO is sparking wide discussion about female ambition with her blockbuster book “Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead”.

At the recent All Things Digital Conference, Sandberg said women hold just 11-21% of the top jobs in high tech. She argued however that it may not be men – or even the so-called ‘glass ceiling’ – holding women back… but themselves. She focused on what she calls the invisible barrier in women’s minds: a lack of confidence that may keep some women from aggressively pursuing opportunities.  Continue reading “How Women Lead In the Workplace”



Avatar

Virtualizing Oracle Databases – The Time Has Come!

Overall, virtualization of IT applications and databases is quite pervasive.  Estimates from industry analysts show that some applications and databases have virtualization penetration rates of 80 to 90%.  Overall the estimates for datacenter virtualization range from 60 to 70%.  One curious exception is the rate of virtualization for Oracle Databases.  Some estimates put the Oracle Database virtualization rate below 20%.  The big question is why so low for Oracle Database?

While I have never seen any formal research documenting the reasons, ad-hoc discussions with many DBAs and Architects and other Oracle users indicates that some of the major reasons for their reluctance to virtualize include:

  • Fear of performance degradation
  • Concern over availability and stability
  • And an “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” view

And for mission critical Oracle Databases those are valid concerns.  Any outage or performance degradation is costly.  Status quo is the safest approach.  But what I am hearing from customers and the Oracle community at large is that the time has come for virtualization.  The improvements in configuration flexibility, reduced deployment times, dramatically improved disaster recovery and cost savings are great motivators for virtualization by themselves. One of the early adopters for virtualizing and Oracle infrastructure was EMC. lets hear what EMC’s Chief Database Architect, Darryl Smith, has to say about the benefits of EMC’s virtualization efforts with EMC’s Oracle Infrastructure.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=473SLIk7XQc

So EMC found great performance, improved availability and a reduction in database licenses all because of their move to virtualize their Oracle infrastructure. Here is more of Darryl talking about Oracle virtualization and the cloud.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pgCxJiC2cxs

EMC took the next logical step from initial virtualization and moved their Oracle infrastructure to a full cloud implementation with even more benefits thanks to the improved Oracle workload mobility.

EMC is a great example of why there appears to be a growing tide of Oracle users who are ready to ride the wave of virtaulization.  To learn more about EMC’s virtualization efforts and results, these two whitepapers on Cisco.com will provide a more complete overview of their journey:

EMC Transforms Their Oracle Infrastructure

EMC’s Journey to the Cloud

For more information on Cisco’s Oracle Solutions and how Cisco Unified Computing can accelerate your virtualization plans, please click here.



Avatar

If you’re heading to Cisco Live! Orlando next week, you’ve probably signed up for a few sessions after running your eyes through the hefty spread of sessions and talks in the events catalogue.

Here’s a cut of the mobility-centric sessions you should mark your calendars for:

Speaker(s)  Rob Soderbery – Senior Vice President, Enterprise Networking Group, Cisco 

June 24 at 12:30 p.m. PT / 3:30 p.m. ET / 21:30 CET  / 22:30 GMT <–Editor’s Note: FIXED to Monday June 24!

To View: Go to the home page at the event start time. The keynote will play in the “Excite” tab.

Session Abstract

Is your enterprise network ready to take you where you want to go? Will it support the business applications that you are being asked to support? In this keynote, you will hear how Cisco is unifying access, building out new network services and making the network more manageable so you can meet the coming needs of your organization. We will also show you how you can support more aspects of your business using the network as a platform for the Internet of Things.